Day 2: Bad is About Perspective

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The day that we came home from the hospital with Mason, I remember sitting on the couch with my mom, breaking the news to her that Mason might have Down Syndrome.  We cried together, and Bradley answered her questions, as best as he could.  During our conversation I remember distinctly saying to her, "This is awful."  And, I meant it.

For about a week I couldn't stop thinking this.  I would find out more of the health risks associated with Down Syndrome, and would panic at the thought that Mason might have leukemia, be deaf, or have a hard time speaking properly.  Mostly, I didn't want him to be made fun of. Ever.  In my mind and heart this was a bad thing.

As I prayed about this, begging God to not allow Mason to have Down Syndrome, I started really thinking through the word bad.  

We use it so often,

"I had such a bad day!"  

"They received some really bad news."  

"I just don't want anything bad to happen to me."

Why do I think that something is bad?  What makes it bad?  Or, rather who makes it bad?

I began to realize that if I thought a situation in life was bad, then I must think that God is bad, because He allowed it and, in fact, gave it to me.

This hit me hard.

I know that God is not bad.  I was reading through the book of Psalm at the time, and came across 25:8, which says, "Good and upright is the LORD."  Again in Psalm 34:8, "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!" There.  Proof!  God is good!  Okay, so if God is good, what about this 'bad' thing that I thought I had in my life.

Bad is about perspective.  

If I look at life from a human standpoint, then yes, certain things might appear to be bad.  If I try to look at life from God's perspective, then I will see that He is much greater than those things.  He has purposes I know nothing about.  Isaiah 55:8 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD."  

I had to remove the word bad from my vocabulary, from my mind, from my heart.

Hard.  Yes, life can be hard.

Countless times in Scripture we see people facing hard challenges.  Job is the most famous of all.  His life was hard.  He lost his family, his possessions, his health--and yet he praised God.

"The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.  In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong,"  Job 1:21-22.

As I started to change my perspective, I began to see that Down Syndrome was not bad.  Something bad hadn't happened.  I didn't receive bad news that day in the hospital.  God was allowing something in my life that was hard.

Why would He do that, you might ask?  Come back tomorrow...

31 Days of a Truth Driven Heart

On Friday I alluded to the fact that I would be participating in 31 Days, hosted by Nester.  I tossed around quite a few ideas of what to write about for the month of October, and finally landed on a topic that has been driving much of my thoughts this year.  I shared in January that my 'word of the year' was HEART.  Little did I know how my heart would be stretched, exposed, challenged, and blessed during this year.

Our son was born in April, and was diagnosed shortly after with Down Syndrome {read a little bit about that here}.  The days and weeks following his birth I found myself longing to cling to the truth of God's Word, and in the midst of that found that my heart wasn't always responding in the way that I had hoped.  This new challenge in my life was exposing some areas of my heart that needed to be changed.

I somehow found it easy to think on the truth, but I wanted more than that.  I wanted my heart to be shaped and driven by the truth so that my responses to life would truly reflect what I believed.  Enter, my 31 topic:

The truth of God's Word is a powerful thing and the more we know it the more our lives will be transformed by it, and our hearts will be shaped, molded, and driven by the truth.

I've put together a portion of Psalm 15 as my theme verse for this series.  The psalmist begins by asking, "Who shall dwell on your holy hill?" {verse 1}, and then the remainder of the Psalm answers this question.  Verse 3 says, "He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart."  And verse 5 concludes by saying, "He who does these things shall never be moved."

Join with me this month as I share how I've been striving to have a Truth Driven Heart.

Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25
Day 26
Day 27
Day 28
Day 29
Day 30
Day 31

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A New & Unexpected Journey

"I'm concerned that Mason might have Down Syndrome."

These were the words spoken to me the morning after our son was born.  Nothing could have prepared me for this and it was one of the most difficult things that I had ever heard.  "What makes you think so", I asked. 

The Doctor paused and began to explain what he saw--one less crease in the palm of his hands, extra skin on his neck--things I hadn't even noticed.  Without other common medical conditions present in children with Down Syndrome, he couldn't be certain until they ran a blood test, the results of which would take two weeks.

In that moment all that I was capable of was to cry and wonder.  My mind began to flood with questions right away:  What would this mean for our family?  What would Mason look like?  How would I be capable of raising a child with special needs?  Why my son?  In the midst of all of these questions, there were three things that I did know:

1. I loved my son.
2. I didn't want my son to have Down Syndrome
3. God was good and sovereign.

Bradley arrived later that morning with the girls and after spending a few minutes together as a family of five for the first time, the Doctor broke the news to Bradley.  We cried hard that night and expressed to each other our frustrations, fears, and all sorts of emotions.  Bradley went into research mode scrambling to try and understand how our lives might be different, but I couldn't.  I wasn't ready to accept it until we had the test results back.

The two weeks waiting for the results were hard.  I cried every time I nursed Mason; I cried when I thought about how our life was possibly changing; I cried wishing that it would all just go away.  I cried because I didn't want to be crying.

Finally, the results came back--the test was positive for Down Syndrome.   We left with stacks of papers full of information and with a son who, although he didn't look much different from our other children, had one extra chromosome that would change the course of his life.

Much has transpired in my heart and mind over the past five months of Mason's life.  I still have questions about Mason's future, and our future with him.  But, there are three things that I know:

1. I love my son.
2. Although I still struggle with some of the realities Mason faces, there is absolutely nothing I     would change about my son. 
3. God is good and sovereign.

Mason is a precious gift from God and we love him more and more every day, just as we do our other children.  This is a new journey we are on, one we certainly didn't expect, but God is giving us grace every day to face the unknown.

Mason's first smile caught on camera

It's taken me months to compose this post.  And, now that I've finally written it out for you, I still have much to share!  So, I thought I would write it over the month of October.  If you've been around this blog for awhile, you might remember my 31 Days series last October, 31 Days of Fall from the Kitchen.  The Nester  started the 31 series, and I decided to participate again this year.   It will have a different flavor this time, but I hope you'll stay around for it.  Come back on Monday for my series title and a little introduction.

Sunburst Mirror with Wooden Shims, Neiman Marcus Knockoff

The project I'm sharing with you today is me jumping on the sunburst mirror bandwagon only about two years behind!  I've gone back and forth in my mind about making one of these, and when I started thinking through our Master Bedroom project, I decided that over the bed would be the perfect place for a large mirror.  I prefer a simple approach to decorating, so one piece of art above the bed, rather than a gallery wall of sorts, seemed like a good solution.

I am so happy that I went with this option!  It's exactly what I was picturing, and I'm loving it!  I followed Thrifty Decor Chick's tutorial for her mirrors {she copied a Ballard design}, and I just made it look a bit more like this mirror I found by Neiman Marcus.

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The natural wood look wasn't working for me, so with two coats of ivory primer/spray paint, and then some brushed on Ivory Dust, by Valspar, my shims were looking the way I wanted.

There are tons of great tutorials out there for variations of a sunburst mirror.  Mine required two packs of builder grade shims, hot glue and glue gun, two scrap pieces of wood, a mirror, hook on the back, and some paint.  Total cost = $15.  Neiman Marcus cost = $375.  I prefer the lower dollar amount.

And, to keep it real, here is the pile of stuff I removed from my nightstand in order to take this picture.

Linking to:

DIY Drapery Hardware

Finding the proper hardware to hang window treatments is always a challenge.  The nice ones are pricey {ranging from $20-$100} and the cheap ones are never the right size.  There are three windows in our Master Bedroom, so if I was going to put in the kind of hardware I wanted, I was looking at spending more money on the hardware than I did on my drapes {read about the drapes here}.

Instead of spending a ton of money, I decided to purchase some materials and put together my own hardware.

1. Purchase materials from Lowe's {or hardware store of your choice}.  These were found near the building materials.  I bought 1 1/4-inch dowel rods, brackets, finials, and little wooden tabs to put into the brackets {not pictured}.

2. Cut dowel rods to size and paint with paint color of choice.  I used a sample size of Ivory Dust, by Valspar.

3. Hang on the wall and put the little wooden piece in to cover the screw.  I then used a q-tip to paint the wooden piece.

These were so easy to do and I love them!  You could easily paint these any color to get a little pop  of color over your windows.  For just about $5 per window, it's not too shabby!

Linking to:

A Little Ramble and Fall is Here!

Whew!  The past week has been quite crazy around here.  All 3 kiddos have been sick, and Mason ended up in the hospital Friday/Saturday with pneumonia.  Poor little guy!  It sure is tough to watch your children struggle to breathe!  He was a trooper, though, and barely even cried while on oxygen all night, getting meds throughout the night, and being handled by lots of people.  He was hands down the cutest patient in the hospital that night!  Thankfully, he's on the mend and it seems like we may be back to 'normal', whatever that is.

Since I spent most of Friday and Saturday at the hospital, I didn't finish some of the projects I was working on, so I'll just show you a few pictures that say fall to me.  It is fall, can you believe it?!  The weather here has just begun to cool off in the mornings and evenings, and very soon we'll be opening up the windows (Bradley says I have to dust first--I detest dusting).  I'm ready for pumpkins, trying out new recipes, shorter days, and curling up under cozy blankets.

Source: bhg.com via Lauren on Pinterest

Source: bhg.com via Lauren on Pinterest

Source: bhg.com via Lauren on Pinterest

Sometimes it's the Little Things

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

Much better, don't you think?  It only took about 5 minutes to remove it, but it made such a difference!  That iron piece bugged for over a year before I finally did something about it.

Is there anything quick and little that you can tackle today??